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List Management

List Fatigue

Declining engagement that occurs when subscribers receive too many emails and become desensitized or annoyed.

Definition

List fatigue is the gradual decline in email engagement that occurs when subscribers receive too many emails over time. Fatigued subscribers stop opening emails, stop clicking, and eventually unsubscribe or mark emails as spam. It is a natural consequence of over-mailing and indicates the need to adjust frequency, improve content relevance, or segment more effectively.

Why It Matters

List fatigue silently erodes your email program's effectiveness. Declining open rates, falling click rates, and rising unsubscribes are symptoms. Ignoring fatigue leads to larger list decay, damaged deliverability, and wasted effort. Managing fatigue maintains long-term list health and engagement.

How It Works

Fatigue develops gradually as subscribers receive more emails than they value. Each unremarkable email reduces their likelihood of engaging with the next. Eventually, they tune out entirely, ignore your emails, or unsubscribe. The threshold varies by individual and content value.

Best Practices

  • 1Monitor engagement trends over time, not just campaign-by-campaign
  • 2Segment by engagement level and reduce frequency for less engaged
  • 3Improve content quality and relevance
  • 4Offer preference centers for subscribers to control frequency
  • 5Run re-engagement campaigns before subscribers fully disengage

Frequently Asked Questions

Look for declining engagement trends: open rates dropping over months, click rates falling, unsubscribes increasing, spam complaints rising. Segment by signup date - if older subscribers engage less, fatigue is likely. Survey subscribers about frequency preferences.

Reduce frequency temporarily, segment by engagement, improve content relevance, and run re-engagement campaigns. Give fatigued subscribers a break, then re-approach with highly valuable content. Some may be permanently lost, but many can be recovered.